Fabrication Of Polyvinyl Alcohol Cartilage Scaffold Materials And Their Performance Evaluation

According to statistics from related departments, as many as100million peop le aresuffering from joint diseases in China, and the number is increasing every year. Tearand strain in the articular cartilage within the physiological range can self-heal, but theinjury outside of the function will cause irreparable harm to the joints. Because thearticular cartilage can not self-repair this damage to restore physiological function, it isnecessary to find the right articular cartilage replacement materials to repair this damage.The currently well-studied cartilage-replacement materials are polymer materials, andthis paper is mainly to study the mechanics and biological performance of polyvinylalcohol (PVA) and its composites.For the preparation of graphene, the use of orthogonal experiment method wasevaluated by different factors, and the graphite oxides (GO) obtained was characterizedby SEM and XRD. Study found that the GO prepared by oxidation is showing clearlayer-structure and its lamellar thickness is about1μm.The author developed a simple biomechanical testing machine which can analyzethe elastic modulus of the composite materials. The testing machine gives the specimena more precise displacement through the differential spiral structure.The mechanical properties of the PVA composites with different contents ofhydroxyapatite (HA), GO and graphene (GE) and the number of freezing and thawingtimes were analyzed using the developed testing machine. Results show that the PVAcomposite materials exists the phenomenon of stress relaxation the composite elasticmodulus increases with the addition of strengthening materials content, the elasticmodulus of the composites also increases with the times of freezing and thawing.Results also found that friction coefficient of the PVA/GE composite hydrogeldecreases with the increase in GE add content and the number of freezing and thawing.In order to study the biological properties of composite materials, cell cultureexperiment was carried out using fluorescent inverted microscope, MTT and SEM. Theresult that was found by evaluation of the biological properties of the composites is thatthe PVA/HA and PVA/GO show excellent mechanical properties and the biologicalperformance is relatively good. Although the mechanical properties of PVA/GE (GO)are better than those of the previous two materials, its biocompatibility is relativelyworse. Fabrication of scaffolds materials showing both excellent mechanical propertiesand good biocompatibility is one of the key contents of tissue engineering.